The subject matter disclosed herein relates to an apparatus and to a method for a lateral overlapping of portions which are transported in a longitudinal direction and which each comprise at least one slice cut off from a food product.
A lateral overlapping of portions can be necessary, for example, when a plurality of food products disposed next to one another such as loaves of sausage or cheese are simultaneously sliced by means of a slicing apparatus, e.g. by means of a high-speed slicer, and a single portion of one or more food slices is thereby generated in each track. It is namely frequently desired in practice to form total portions from, for example, two such single portions, wherein said total portions should each be placed at a downstream packaging apparatus into a packaging provided for sales and should be presented therein in the form of laterally overlapped single portions.
A lateral overlapping of portions has previously typically taken place by means of conveying devices of relatively long construction whose construction length can, for example, amount to 3 to 4 m. Known overlappers comprise two belt conveyers which are arranged in a continuous separate manner above one another in different planes and with which a so-called rocker is associated at the input side by means of which a part of the incoming portions is conducted to the upper conveying plane and another part of the incoming portions is conducted to the lower conveying plane. A portion from the upper conveying plane is then placed from the upper conveying plane onto a portion transported in the lower conveying plane at the end of the upper conveying plane. Each of the two conveying planes is provided with at least one separate drive so that the conveying speeds can be set accordingly. A further drive is required for the separate associated rocker at the input side.
Known overlappers therefore not only need a lot of room due to their length, but also have a complex and expensive structure since the two conveying planes and the rocker mean at least three independent belt conveyors have to be provided and have to be equipped with mutually independent drives. Such an effort and/or cost is appropriate and suitable for large throughput quantities, in particular with a permanent use of the overlapping function.